What is Quality of Life?

Quality of life factors are highly interwoven. Where you see communities with exceptional educational opportunities, you are likely to find lower crime risks and a higher sense of well-being. This can attract cultural diversity; pride in the community, and in turn, economic growth. Striving for high quality of life standards promotes a balanced, prosperous community.

Quality of life permeates all dimensions of the community. It measures how well people move around, where they live, their access to parks and recreation, the quality of their schools, and the safety of their neighborhoods, to name a few. Essentially, the measure accounts for anything that affects an individual’s ability to lead a balanced, healthy, prosperous life.

High quality of life is often about providing options for people, so that the community meets the needs of a broad range of individuals. For example, a completely car-centric city might be very unappealing to a person that is committed to walking, biking, or busing to work. Therefore, balancing a high functioning road system with multi-modal options makes for a high quality of life standard for transportation.

Some quality of life factors do not need to provide options, but simply strive for a high standard. These include clean water and air, abundant open space and natural areas, low crime risk, and outstanding schools. Achieving these standards benefits each and every member of the community and can continuously be improved upon.

Specifically, what does high quality of life mean to those who live in Olathe?

Comments received at numerous public events revealed that residents identify Olathe as a place that: